[216] During the years between 1000 and 1230, the Montcada lineage was founded and it evolved into an important family of territorial lords. The family's policy from the start was to preserve and augment its fortune, and the marriage of Beatriu de Montcada and Guillem Ramon [II] Seneschal in the twelfth century assured its future. The career of the Great Seneschal made it possible for future Montcadas to achieve social status and political influence that were unsurpassed by any family in Catalonia except the royal house.

The very first Montcada took part in the feudal transformation of the early eleventh century. Without joining the faction of castle lords that openly defied the authority of the count of Barcelona, the Montcadas established themselves as important castle lords, and their independence increased during a period of weak comital leadership. A compromise of the mid-eleventh century, by which Ramon Berenguer I recognized the new banal lordship of the castellan class in exchange for acknowledgment of his political leadership, helped solidify the Montcada territorial lordship. Perhaps as a consequence, the direct heirs of the first Montcada progressively abandoned the count's household, leaving to others the roles of comital escort, adviser, and companion.

Among the new faces to appear in the count's retinue in the late eleventh century was that of Guillem Ramon [I] Seneschal, who was named to the office by Ramon Berenguer I. Guillem Ramon became an important figure during the late eleventh century, when Catalonia again suffered from weak comital leadership. His son Guillem Ramon [III Seneschal inherited his father's title and his patrimony, but he managed to elevate his lineage to the ranks of the leading castellan families by marrying Beatriu de [217] Montcada. The union of the two lineages raised a potential political problem, however. The seneschal was now a full member of a circle of barons whose independence knew no limit but the oaths of fidelity granted by their predecessors in the eleventh century to Ramon Berenguer I. The inevitable conflict arose when Count Ramon Berenguer IV reasserted the primacy of comital authority, and it ended when he forced Guillem Ramon [II] into personal submission.

A new synthesis resulted from the struggles between Guillem Ramon and Ramon Berenguer: the Montcada family retained its territorial lordships and cemented its ties to the dynasty of Barcelona. From the regency of Alfons I onward, the Montcadas' influence on the political activities of the count-kings was constant and for the most part positive. But the views of individual Montcadas were important even when they were opposed to the count-king, because they sometimes represented opinions held by numbers of their peers. By providing a channel for the expression of baronial sentiment, the Montcadas may have contributed to a stable functioning of the feudal monarchy. Their politics benefited the Montcadas themselves as well, for the lineage reached new heights of social prominence during the reign of Jaume I.

By the turn of the twelfth century, the political influence of the Montcada family depended substantially upon the economic resources of the head of each of its branches. These resources, which derived primarily from the income of lordship, were shared among dozens of feudatories -- who contributed in turn to the political and military might of their "best" lords. During the half-century from 1180 to 1230 the patrimonies of first three, then four Montcada branches were evidently strained by the demands placed on them by their lords, especially for cash. This led in some cases to borrowing, in other cases to alienations of property, and yet in other cases to the introduction of rent-farming. The economic conditions of peasants on Montcada domains seem to have worsened during this period, especially in Old Catalonia, due to the demands by lords at every level for an increased share in their subjects' production.

This period of strained resources followed a century and a half (1020-1170) during which the expenditures of first the Montcadas, then the lineage born of the union of Beatriu de Montcada and [218] Guillem Ramon [II] had not exceeded available income. That situation had prevailed partly because the Montcadas and the Great Seneschal were successful in extending their lordship into new districts and partly because they often received generous grants from the counts of Barcelona. The eventual financial crunch resulted from an increase in the number of Montcadas making demands on virtually the same patrimony that had supported the Great Seneschal at the height of his career; from fewer grants from the count-kings; and from an increased number of feudatories in Montcada service. Another cause was the greater expenditures -- perhaps largely related to travel -- that accompanied the Montcadas' increased activities as magnates of regional importance. These developments brought economic difficulties to a noble lineage that was very much on the rise in Catalan society.

The patrimony of the earliest Montcada remained intact from the establishment of the lineage in the early eleventh century to its merger with the family of Guillem Ramon [I] Seneschal because of succession practices that favored inheritance by a single heir and that severely limited the number of children allowed to marry. The heirs of Guillem de Montcada were able to transmit a heritage to Guillem Ramon [II] Seneschal that had grown through successive generations. His inheritance, too, was preserved in its entirety for Montcada descendants by allowing his brother Ot only lifetime rights. These practices and late marriages, which helped extend the span of years between generations, were ideally suited to preserving the Montcada patrimony.

The succession practices that had benefited the Montcadas in the eleventh century were discarded by Guillem Ramon [II] Seneschal, who even before his death had established two separate legacies, one in Old Catalonia and another in Tortosa-Lleida. These inheritances later supported four Montcada branches, though by 1225 only three remained. The division of the Great Seneschal's heritage might have been disastrous for his heirs if another, quite different factor had not been at work. The social status of the women whom Montcada men married in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries seems to have been generally higher than in the period 1050-1130, when the lords of Montcada married women of whom almost nothing is known and who apparently brought little if anything to the patrimony. But the heirs of the [219] Great Seneschal married, among others, a viscountess, a countess, and the daughter of a count-king. The Ramons of Tortosa-Lleida married less distinguished women, but at least one of them was the daughter of an important Montcada vassal, and the marriage probably further cemented that tie.

The Montcadas' marriages in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries demonstrated the breadth and unity of ruling society of the period. Their class had become a nobility whose rite of initiation -- knighthood -- was shared by king and castle lord alike. Within this social group, the Montcadas forged marriage alliances that linked their descendants to the families of counts on the one hand and vassals on the other. Thus established, transformed, and renewed, the lineage continued to play an important role not only in Catalonia, but also in Spain and the Mediterranean, throughout the late Middle Ages and well into the early modern period of European history.